GMO and my Religion

There is hardly a more ridiculed single biblical verse than Leviticus 19:19.
    It forbids the interbreeding of different kinds of animals - but people have always done it and so did ancient Israelites when they kept their mules.
    It forbids sowing fields and gardens with different seeds and plants - we do it all the time and so did ancient Israelites when, for instance, they trained their famous grapevines on fig-trees.
    And finally it forbids wearing clothes made of a mixture of different fibers - we do it all the time and ancient Israelites certainly made such fabrics when they wove together linen tassels and wool on the fringes of their clothes.
    So what is going on here? Some fundamentalists labor hard to preserve any semblance of Biblical inerrancy, while anti-fundamentalists and atheists gleefully point out this anachronistic nonsense.
    I find both approaches unsatisfactory and, frankly, sad. I am convinced that proper biblical as well as anthropological exegesis of this verse can open for us new and important insights. 

   This Sunday we will continue our series on Mahatma Gandhi’s Blunders of the World and talk about Science without Humanity. I am convinced that this strange Old Testament verse can become for us the living and current Word of God, a divine spiritual instrument to teach us how to be humane, why and how to be part of the fabric of life, how to broaden and deepen the network of our relationships, how to relate to one another and to nature with understanding, respect, and love. Come to ask “Why faith seeks NON GMO.” 

And here I continue with one of the reasons why I personally consider GMO being problematic technique.
    It is a little troublesome but important story about our relationship to the natural world around us and why I personally think we need to challenge the thoughtless acceptance of GMO technology on the most elemental, moral or religious level.
    A parishioner in one of my previous churches happened to be an University Professor of biology. One day she shared with me her scientific experiments in the field of genetic modifications of cultural plants. I do not remember exactly what the plant was but I think her laboratory experimented with one of the cereals. They were attempting to insert into this plant some kind of a foreign gene, most likely something "useful" like being resistant to poisonous herbicides or perhaps to add the ability to fluoresce in dark ;-). 

   This new foreign gene was implanted, I believe, by using a virus. But they did not have, or did not care about having, much control over the exact location of these implants. In the blind manner of trial and error they implanted hundreds of seeds. In many seeds their newly inserted gene interrupted an important genetic sequence, in some other seeds it displaced some other essential genes of that plant. 

   The results were eye opening - rows and rows of differently mutilated seedlings in hydroponic dishes. Many seeds did not grow at all. Some lucky seeds grew into plants but had strangely shaped leaves, some plants grew hardly any roots, some other seedlings looked like a strange knots of leaves and roots mangled all together (roots growing off the leaves and leaves growing among roots), and some seeds germinated but just to form some amorphous greenish blobs of slime. I could hardly stand that look. (I am not a biologist but this is what I saw or at least what I thought I saw.) 

     You might say that I have a way too thin skin, but I could not accept that amount of artificial, unnecessary, manmade suffering, be it caused "only" to plants. This laboratory stage is seldom shown and hardly ever known. And this is just the first step in production of a Genetically Modified Crop. Many more steps are needed, with similar pain or risks not only to the targeted plant, but also to surrounding plants, insects, animals, in short, to the entire environment, including farmers and society at large. I am not against science, but observing this experiment I experienced the visceral moral revulsion against science which is profit-driven and this inhumane.
    Now you know one of the reasons why Genetically Modified Organisms are against my religion (*see below). And, please, consider joining good endeavour of:

* Powerful and moneyed GMO companies are suing their opponents up and down, left and right, but to my best knowledge their lawyers are toothless against this kind of religious arguments. It is somehow tongue-in-cheek, I know, but I stay by it, GMO is against my religion!

What cannot be bought

A wedge from an apple on a slice of bread. This simplest of fares reminds me of my most delicious lunches. I shared them with my maternal grandfather while tending to his beloved orchard. He attempted to initiate me into the mysteries of orcharding, caring for trees, even the miracles of grafting. I was too young to really learn anything. But it did instill in me a great respect for trees and for the craft of orchard-tending. Yet, best memory for me was our lunches: bread and apples and two-three grains of salt which made this simple meal burst into fireworks of flavors.
    Since that time I have eaten some exquisite, expensive and exotic meals. During my study in Edinburgh, I represented my Czech denomination at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and was invited by His Grace, Lord High Commissioner, to the Royal Banquet in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. I have also eaten in Michelin-grade restaurants as well as in some exotic eateries around the world, but no gastronomic experience could get even close to this simple slice of bread with few slices of apple and grains of salt which we ate together in the orchard.
    I am certain you share some similar experiences, if not gastronomical, then in some other aspects of your lives. As we continue investigating Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven  Blunders of the World, this Sunday we will ponder “Pleasure without Conscience.” And we will again try to approach our theme from the positive angle, searching together for what establishes genuine pleasure, and how heaven-ordained it is that pure pleasure is often very simple and cannot be bought.

Deadly Sins

“What is your definition of sin?” I was asked while being examined by the room full of church officers of the New York City Presbytery before being allowed to joining this presbytery.
    I told them the story of my previous upstate New York home. I served a church in Binghamton, but we lived in a nearby city called Endicott. It had been a cradle of a famous and powerful computer company. Most of the first American computers were made right there. Before soldering their circuit boards, they needed to be degreased. The firm was a recipient of generous military and government contracts and thus could afford only the “best” and strongest solvents and did not need to reuse them. Solvents were dumped to the ground around the factory, a practice which continued for decades. Then the town children started to get sick with otherwise rare cancers. A study was done, and a cluster of serious illnesses was discovered even among adults. The company kept these first studies secret and quietly attempted to camouflage some of their poisonous tracks in a vain hope that the problem would go away. It did not. Eventually the ugly truth came out. But by that time, the company had moved all their business away from Endicott. They are all but gone from there, leaving behind an underground toxic plume, a large ecological and environmental disaster. Thankfully local activists and New York State laws forced them to shoulder at least some of the clean-up cost.
    But why am I telling you this long story? Because this is what modern industrial large-scale sin looks like. It often starts with the arrogance of wealth and power, it is fueled by negligence and disrespect for the environment and people. It is prolonged by conspiracy to hide disastrous consequences and by the avoidance of taking responsibility. It finally leads to serious harm to the innocent and is very difficult to clean up or at least mitigate. Our modern pollution is unfortunately quite a fitting modern parable of any sin large and small; it can persist underground for long periods of time, has serious harmful consequences, more often than not for those who did not cause it.
    This Sunday opens a series of sermons inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Sins (also known as Seven Blunders of the World) first published in 1925. (We will depart from this theme only for few special days like MLK or Evolution Sunday) but this Sunday we start with the first Blunder of the World - “Wealth without Work” and we will also ask “Why is it that manual work heals?” In hope we can also find some antidotes.

Avoiding the Faustian Trap

A scholar sits in his study, struggling with a biblical translation, searching for the best fitting words. It should not have been a big problem; it is a short simple sentence composed of the most basic words. This is a famous introductory scene in the drama by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe and the scholar is named Doctor Faust. He translates opening sentence of the Gospel of John: “In the Beginning was the Word.” Doctor Faust tries to find a better translation. He is not much happier with his second attempt “In the Beginning was the Thought.” Then he tries “In the Beginning was the Power.” before he finally settles for “In the Beginning was the Act.” And only few poetic sentences later Faust is talking with Mephistopheles, the devil himself, and soon Mephistopheles would hold a contract signed in Faust’s own blood.

“You see!” The fundamentalists exclaim, all exited (at least those few who know Goethe’s Faust.) “You see, such loose and willful translating can only lead to dreadful ends!” But is it really as simple as that? Johan Wolfgang Goethe was certainly learned enough to know that the Hellenistic LOGOS represented more than any German “das Wort” or its direct English equivalent “the Word”! Doctor Faust might had been translating to fit his own agenda, nevertheless he was trying to solve a real and truly exciting conundrum. Our lectionary biblical reading on Epiphany prescribes for us the same biblical text and the very similar task. We will attempt to extrapolate this beautiful and deceptively simple Johanine hymn into our modern idiom while avoiding the Faustian trap (self serving translation).

Prayer Flags for Broadway

How do you meet with God? How do you recognize God’s presence? How do you discern the divine will?

Ancient people practiced “Phyllomancy”. In sacred groves and under special holy trees they waited and listened. Fluttering leaves announced to them the divine presence and whispered to them sacred tidings. We can find an echo of this practice in the Genesis story from the Garden of Eden: “people heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the form of the daily breeze(RUACH)”. (Genesis 3:8) There is number of other similar instances in the Bible - even Jesus in the Gospel of John famously remarks: “Just as wind (PNEUMA) blows wherever it fancies and you can hear its sound, but cannot fully grasp its paths, so it is with everything of spiritual (PNEUMA) origins.” (John 3:8) Even our languages preserve this inkling: Hebrew RUACH, Greek PNEUMA, just like English SPIRIT from Latin SPIRITUS, all cover the broad spectrum of meanings of wind, breath and spirit.
    I do not think that God is literally present in any meteorological phenomena as complex, stochastic and unpredictable, as they might be. This connection between wind, breath and divine spirit is just a metaphor for the subtle, yet discernible and efficacious divine presence in our lives. It is a marvelous reminder, God is as close to us as the air we breathe.
    In our urban setting we can forget about whispering leaves as the visualization and reminder of this divine mystery. In our climate, leaves are gone for long periods of year, and anyway their shiver would be easily drowned out in the constant din of our cacophonous environment. On Broadway and in our neighborhood we need something clearer and “louder”.
    This Sunday, at the brink of the old and new year, we will connect this old wind-spirit metaphor with the similarly ancient practice of prayer flags. Two years ago we made our first prayer flags and they blew in the wind, filling our neighborhood with their prayers until they were destroyed by the scaffolding and repair workers. On this Sunday we will make our new prayer flags, this time vertical ones. Our new prayer flags will stand on Broadway and 73rd Street sidewalks and visualize, accentuate, and summon again the presence of the divine healing, peace, and grace for our neighborhood and environment.

Messiah prophecy in paraphrase

Recently I received a challenge to paraphrase Isaiah's prophecy (chapter 11) into a modern idiom, here is my attempt:

Imagine the National Tree which had been cut down; it’s just a stump, its life is gone. But from the root of that tree a new shoot starts to grow and it becomes a strong proud tree again. So do not give up hope! Just like the new branch that grows from the stump of the tree that seemed dead, a new leader will come! This leader will follow closely God’s will, and will possess the fullness of the divine knowledge and understanding. This person will be a good leader, will not take bribes, will not be corrupt but will rule the way God has always wanted - care for the poor and bring fairness for the exploited. The whole world will take notice when he will let the rich and arrogant know their limits!
      That way God will make all things good and safe again. No one will hurt anybody, even all the animals will live together in peace, they will not hunt and kill each other, not even for food. Just imagine! All the animals will be vegetarians and live peacefully together, and a little child will be able to lead them all. Not the ancient sages and scholars, but a child will be so full of wisdom to teach the world about divine rules and plans. There will be no more destruction, plundering, or pollution. Everyone and everything in the entire world will know about God’s peaceful ways. They will know that God permeates everything, even the darkest depths of the outer universe! They will know that all the people have always been an  integral part of God’s plan and of the divine future.

It is not particularly accurate translation or even paraphrase, it misses to translate or even to represent some Ancient Near East cultural and religious phenomena, but I think it is still interesting. And thousands of years later, it remains just a hope. More and more I am convinced that messianic prophecies are aspirational rather than fulfillable. Their function in religion and society is to present an ideal model and mirror to our ugly politicians and leaders.

Incarnation in Ultra-Deep Field

In September, 2003 astronomers made a courageous decision.
They aimed the current most powerful telescope at what was believed to be absolutely nothing. It was a minuscule piece of sky of a size of a poppy seed held at full arm’s length. This small square was just south of the constellation Orion and in this miniscule field were no known stars or other astronomical objects, only empty nothingness. So they aimed the telescope, opened the shutter and waited. They waited through January, 2004 collecting individual photons. When they processed the image they received this picture - it is called the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF). In it are a few small stars distinguishable by their diffraction spikes, and then ten thousand galaxies! Some of these galaxies are currently the oldest and most distant known objects in the universe, more than 13 billions years old. In addition to those few individual stars every single bright puff or dot is a unique galaxy, each composed from millions to billions of stars. What was originally considered to be an empty piece of the sky the size of a poppy seed actually contains in those galaxies about ten trillion stars. Now extrapolate this finding all around the sky in all directions.
    It is virtually impossible not to be in awe of this enormous and beautiful spectacle of deep space. The Universe is an unimaginably and humblingly LARGE place. We live in one minuscule, tiny littlest corner on even a smaller speck of dust. Now what does it mean for us and for our religion? Suddenly we realize that old religious and dogmatic answers are not satisfactory any longer. We need to search anew for an answer to the ancient incarnation question Cur Deus Homo? - Why God (became) human. We are forced to re-ask the question, to re-formulate it, Why should God become human? Why should God become human, here and now (and two thousand years is “a now” in scales of billions of light-years). Perhaps we need to abandon logic, even theo-logic, and venture beyond mytho-logic into the realms of mytho-poetry. Come this Sunday to seek insight into the simple, almost childish, yet still inspired mytho-poetry of the Gospel of James.

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It was the scholastic theologian Anselm of Canterbury who asked Cur Deus Homo - Why God (became) human. And he even though he found the answer in his deeply feudal and troublesome soteriology (the satisfaction view of atonement). But his asking and his answering were utterly anthropocentric (like so much of theology throughout history anyway). Anselm asked and answered as if there was nothing else but the Earth, and as if God was some kind of a medieval brutal feudal lord.
As we look into the true depth of space and time the mystery or incarnation looms exponentially larger and requires us to ask different and more uncertain questions Cur Deus Homo - Why (should) God (become) human?